Everyone seems to know it was Russia and is just casting out ideas to find a plausible motivation. I find that completely baffling. For opportunity, consider that while setting up the pipeline needs a weird high-pressure residence and special training, blowing it up takes a fishing boat, scuba gear and underwater explosives. The equipment and training is cheap and available. So, those with opportunity is almost anyon…
Diving down 60-80 meters in the baltic ocean is quite advanced technical diving if you are just going to go down there and up again. Doing any kind of work (which increase breathing) at those depths is a massive step in complexity. We are talking about cold water diving, at hypoxic gas depths, with usually low visibility. The dive would require several hours of decompression in the middle of a shipping lane. The dens…
Russia - doing it to try and place blame on US due to Biden comments in order to sow discord amongst NATO.
Poland - they have been really vocal against NS2, they have economic and political interests aligned with its destruction, they are right there .... and my buddy who works on Polish coast said that all the gas to make trimix in that area was bought up / consumed recently. He's a diver, thought it was weird as these are common gases but assumed it was because Ukraine war. Might not be related by the way.. If I was an invrstigative reporter I'd call all the gas supply / blending / diving companies in Poland and see what their oxygen, helium, and nitrogen stock looks like.
US - always possible that US and partners just said "this makes most sense to do this. It's a win worth it". Although honestly, I don't think the current admin has the cojones to do something like this. At least not without all of NATO involved. It's too brazen.
- colonel mustard with the candlestick. Somebody else